Poor meter choice

I have never been opposed to pay parking downtown to help benefit the local businesses. The problem is with the company the city chose to supply the meters. It's fairly clear that no comparisons with other style meters were made, since I've come across far more user-friendly devices in other cities.

Today, Labor Day, we walked downtown with out-of-town visitors and consistently came across either a confused person trying to figure out how to use one, or someone trying to help someone else use one.

What's wrong with this picture?

If the elected official in charge of this had perhaps looked further than the first consultant that came along (the common story as I've heard - please correct me otherwise), and seriously evaluated other company offerings out there, we might have had a far better outcome:Meters that are super easy to use (happy visitors) and businesses that benefit from them.